Legendary photographer Bert Stern 1929-2013

Stern, a commercial photographer who created iconic images for print and advertising, and who is best known for his photographs of Marilyn Monroe in what became known as "The Last Sitting," died at his home in New York City on Wednesday, June 26, 2013. He was 83.

Credit: Neilson Barnard

Born in Brooklyn, Bert Stern was among a generation of photographers (including Irving Penn and Richard Avedon) known for their uncluttered and alluring images.

"He's not quite as well known but fits into that group for revolutionizing the way celebrities were photographed," said Jessica Johnson, assistant curator at the George Eastman House.

"He'll be remembered as someone who loved women and loved taking pictures and putting things he felt strongly about in the camera," said Stern's wife, filmmaker Shannah Laumeister. "His images will live forever and wow generations to come."

"He was an enormously innovative photographer, both as a commercial photographer and a photographer of celebrities and fashion models. And one of the great people in his field," said Bruce Barnes, director of the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y., which this summer is presenting Stern's only documentary film, "Jazz on a Summer's Day," made in the late 1950s about the Newport Jazz Festival.

Credit: Courtesy "Bert Stern: Original Mad Man"

Sophia Loren, Pisa, 1962.

Credit: Bert Stern/Courtesy Staley-Wise Gallery New York

An unpublished photograph of Audrey Hepburn by Bert Stern, 1964.

Credit: Courtesy "Bert Stern: Original Mad Man"

"Marilyn Monroe with Blue Roses": Photograph by Bert Stern, from "The Last Sitting," 1962.

Stern shot thousands of pictures of Monroe at the Bel Air Hotel in Los Angeles in 1962 for Vogue magazine just weeks before her drug overdose death. They included nude and semi-nude images.

Credit: Bert Stern/Courtesy Staley-Wise Gallery New York

The Monroe images "go beyond the photograph and become a work of art," Shannah Laumeister said of the "Last Sitting" series.

In "Bert Stern: Original Madman," a documentary Laumeister made of the photographer, Stern said, "It was a one-time-in-a-lifetime experience to have Marilyn Monroe in a hotel room, even though it was turned into a studio."

Credit: Bert Stern/Courtesy Staley-Wise Gallery New York

Left: Marilyn Monroe, from "The Last Sitting", 1962.

The 2,500 images, including ones Monroe rejected, were published in a 1982 book titled "The Last Sitting," and a second book, "Marilyn Monroe: The Complete Last Sitting," that came out in 2000.